Ottawa Centre Council Minutes

Status of the Collection:

The collection continues to be housed in a locked cabinet in an office at the Canada Museum of Science and Technology. Use of the collection has declined slightly over the past year, highlighting the need for a better catalogue, new books and more active promotion of the collection.

Progress Over the Past Year:

Following-up from recommendations in last year's report, several projects were completed:

1. A new inventory of the collection

   Each item in the cabinet was recorded, as were returns of borrowed items over several months. The number of items physically accounted for in this way is 286. Of this number, 106 items are more than 20 years old, 119 are between ten and twenty years old, and 48 items are less than ten years old. More research will be needed to determine the age of the remaining items. The number of previously catalogued items on loan is 127, of which 38 were borrowed within the last six years. The majority of catalogued items still on loan were borrowed more than ten years ago and may be presumed to be lost to the collection, as many have been out more than 15 years.
    

2. Magazines removed from the cabinet to make room for books

   A handful of Centre members generously offered to take them.
    

3. Surplus books sold

   Several boxes of donated books unsuitable for inclusion in the collection were sold at the November, 2005 Centre meeting. The sale raised $170, which will be put toward new acquisitions. Only one box of books remained unsold at the end of the meeting.
    

4. A new catalogue of the collection

   This will replace the previous catalogue, which was completed in the mid-1990s. The new catalogue includes all items listed in the inventory. Authoritative cataloguing records were gathered on the Internet, primarily from the National Library of Canada and the U.S. Library of Congress sites. This data has been entered into a Microsoft Access database, which allows for sorting of records by any one of the data fields. Included in the full catalogue records are the following fields:

• Accession number (number assigned to the item as it joined our collection)
• Author
• Title
• Date
• Publisher
• Classification number (Dewey Decimal number)
• Subject #1 (Library of Congress Subject Headings)
• Subject #2 (custom subject headings created by the librarian, based on Library of Congress Subject Headings)
• Series
• Format
• Status
• Comments

The new catalogue will allow for much better analysis and organization of the collection. It can also be used to create new catalogue listings to post on the Ottawa Centre's Web Site. Items can now be listed by title, subject and author to improve browsing for Library users. The current catalogue only lists items alphabetically by title.
 

5. (in progress) An analysis of the collection undertaken by the Librarian

   As noted in last year's report, weeding is required to make room in the cabinet for new acquisitions to make the collection more timely and relevant to users. I have developed a scoring system to assess which items to review for weeding from the collection. The assessment criteria include the age of the item, the number of items held on the same topic, whether the item is timely for its subject area, whether the item is for a special audience (e.g. youth), has historical value, and whether there are multiple copies. Items produced by or for the Ottawa Centre have been exempted from weeding.

Next Steps:

Over the next year, I plan to complete the following projects:

1. Assess and weed the current collection.

   As instructed by Council, I will compile a list of items that, in my judgment, should be weeded from the collection. Councilors may review these items and make a case for keeping any that they feel are of continuing interest or value to Centre members.
    

2. Post the new catalogue on the Centre's web site.

   Working with the Centre's Web Master, I will assist in the transfer of information from the catalogue to the Centre's web site.
    

3. Sell weeded items.

   I will sell the weeded items at a future Centre meeting and use the proceeds to purchase new items.
    

4. Coordinate the selection and purchase of new items.

   I will do research and make recommendations for adding new items to the collection. Part of this project will be to consult the Observing Coordinators for their recommendations.
    

5. Promote the catalogue and collection.

   Once the new catalogue has been posted on the web site, I will promote it at future meetings and in AstroNotes. Part of the promotion will be introducing new items added to the collection.
    

6. Actively seek the return of long overdue books.

   Most borrowers return their items within a few months. For the others, I will make an effort to contact as many delinquent borrowers as possible to seek the return of overdue books. Future borrowers will be asked to fill out a borrower's card with more complete contact information so that overdue Library items can be tracked down more easily.
    

This page last modified: November 26, 2006